Tag: Empathy

Philosophy – “The Hypocrisy of Activists” – 7/14/2022

“To suggest that our world shows itself as deranged, full of problems with other mounting inconsistences, will turn out, most often, to be a display of negligence to those affected by such faults. In focusing on a problem, we neglect those affected by a problem. However, if we accept this world as full of problems, our better route comes down to aiding those who have already accepted themselves as a part of their own problem.”

– Modern Romanticism

Activists will say it, that our world holds many faults. Our world, not a person attracted to said faults; because, to focus on a victim as a problem seems against their problem, as if meaning to separate victim from problem. Why has that become separate? External faults are not stagnant. They become magnets to attract others to them, usually out of incorrect choices under that same will or freedom a person holds, with a necessity to hold themselves accountable. If we state that everyone has been victimized, in some fashion, we are separating fault from person as if to mean a victim can be viewed as perfect, while external faults are all demons.

Whenever an activist will state this, that our world, not a person, shows error, they will contradict this statement when their tactics of problem-solving ever go to focus on person, not problem. If person, not problem, becomes their focus, it had been person, not problem, that had been a problem. Although, this creates true compassion, that in knowing to not be negligent requires focus on those affected by negative circumstance, an activist has more an understanding on sociology. While psychology will comprehend an individual, sociology will comprehend external grounds. To not be negligent means to always focus on a person, or an individual. To be negligent means to focus on our world, of its faults, instead of those affected by those problems.

How can one be compassionate, without realizing what defines an error? As humanity resembles sheer imperfection, always by what connects people together, being wounds and hurt, no empathy can surround focus on external problems. As empathy goes to define itself, seeing internal fault will be of it, as sociology will not be for it. How can a focus on external fault represent a compassion, ever extending to a person, when empathy compares always to internal imperfection or error?

No focus on external problems can be of compassion. Though, seeing a person as problematic, enough to change their psychology in one’s empathy to turn them down different roads, shows this compassion. Through being empathetic, we cannot assume. We know. We have that knowledge, because we have been there down that incorrect avenue to recognize its negative outcomes. If an activist sees all problems in our world, an activist will not ever focus on steering a person apart from their improper decisions, without contradicting their entire doctrine. An activist will not aid a person, though will present themselves as meant to absolve this world of its problems, perhaps with an underlying intent for there to be no more need for empathy nor humanity.

In focusing on what might be wrong of an individual, that person can be aided enough to make correct choices. From an empathetic connection, we recognize a person. To that person, it can be known, through an empathetic connection, that they have been helped when we did not commit to tasks they must learn to do. We have merely showed them a path, through displaying examples of betterment out of what we, before knowing them, had understood.

Philosophy – “The Purpose of a Polarity” – 2/15/2022

“Are we meaning to make more than what simply is, being the vastness of one subject or the landscape of different views of those meant or should be given light? There is a necessity to a divide. It comes during an era of complexity. Boundless complications require their simplification. If simplification wasn’t a response to the complex, we’d not understand the complex.”

– Modern Romanticism

The world is filled with politics and genuineness, business and honesty, religion and rational thinking. The world is filled with polarities.

Most believe people in the notion that not everything is black and white. Although, even if a person attempts to reason one out of war-like or conflict-introducing thought, it was the “unique perspective” that, perhaps being outside the norm, merely was the polarity of peace to the war.

To understand the humanity or the reasons behind a person’s actions, then to mention that what was done cannot simply be “right” nor “wrong”, would also be in comprehension to how a side has been taken. Or it should be. When we understand that the soldier fought not for the right nor wrong reasons, though for their reasons, their view to which we say might be “unique” or “outside the normative ways” is also polarizing in our now-present bout of confusion. This confusion stems from knowing what is complex about a world, or about a person. A person is complex, as this is what confuses us. As humans, we divide because we crave sanity. We are not meant for confusion or the sheerness of complexity in that we are always meant to be “outside of the outside”, so we remain locked in. If we were always complex, then the soldier would not have been one, fighting for their reasons, their cause.

We simplify the complexity of the world, because without doing so, we would not understand what is complex. When we can understand what is complex, we are not constantly proud in the belief of our supposed “uniqueness”. We are not meant to be so much wishing to stand apart from all else, that we soon gain a god complex mentality.

As everyone else, as humans, our divides come from the eagerness to be sane. Our eyes find a shattered puzzle, and we meant for it to not remain as the confusing abstract. Naturally, we build the puzzle, as the same is said for an architect to a city. We build the puzzle, the same as construction workers build the shops, the hospitals, and the museums and libraries. Simplicity is the sanity, in knowing how to divide the purpose of a shopping mall from a gas station.

Philosophy Series – “Of Humanity” – Pt. 1 – 8/15/2021

“Humans are only complex, because of our curse to overthink ourselves. To our identity that makes us, it is not so complex as to state we are different enough to be unique, even if that uniqueness allows us a moment of pride. Our identity is a human one. We are not above nor beneath another person, when we are equal. We share in pain, as easily we can overcome such, through the vulnerability that tells of ourselves being capable to be wounded.”

– Modern Romanticism

No human possesses no weakness. It is the greatest weakness to believe one has none, since this reveals oneself in the light with the most exposure.

Protection. This enforces the notion of love. To protect the self, would be preferred in the physical sense. However, at the psychological level, protection means more for where a secret can be shared. No friend nor lover should interrogate, though should offer a sense of comfort that one’s secrets are not held within.

Are all a person’s darkest secrets most often carried to the grave? Could that person have been Forest Gump, speaking of everything during a time when they have no one left for confession’s sake? Life is too short to hold it back with weights. Who is a friend to another? Who is a lover to another? Of generations that depict themselves “unique” upon the presence of their scars, comes with the encouragement for isolation or segregation. A birth of prejudiced generations, that is, since to believe one’s pain makes an individual unique, is to renounce the definition behind equality.

Continue reading “Philosophy Series – “Of Humanity” – Pt. 1 – 8/15/2021″

Quote – “What it Means to Empathize with a Monster” – 7/18/2021

“Could we ever empathize with the mindset of Hitler, as a characteristic so similar in others? As all monstrous another can be, to empathize with one so beastly in state and appearance calls us to what ourselves can be feeling in their presence. Fear. We fear the monster. If such is the case, then to empathize with a monster is to know their fear. Just as Hitler had feared the Jewish people, believing them a threat to Germany. Or, just as a family evicts an addict out of their home, not out of hatred, though motivated by the fear that their influence would spread. It is usually enough to know that a monster might be pure in their evil, though never sufficient to understand a human’s darkness shows the same depth to a shade as where we hide when they will hunt for us.”

– Modern Romanticism

Philosophy – “Why a Man is Weakened, not Weak, when Weeping” – 2/20/2021

“No wall is indomitable. To each inch that covers one, there might still be a crack, enough to shatter the entirety.”

– Modern Romanticism

Just as people might believe that age guarantees wisdom, it is the reverse. Wisdom guarantees age. As in, to apply wisdom, means survival is in the independent hands. To be wise, means that the second mistake, after learning for the first time, will not end this train of survival. We mean to people who shouldn’t make the same mistake twice, that their immaturity might be their burial. Same to weep, when the greatest weakness is to believe there is none. An immaturity as this, opens up all weaknesses. It opens. We release. We weep.

To weep, after much to keep concealed, is much like a dam being broken. It was weakened. A mistake having been made, to then the person ignoring it, is the immaturity to believe it won’t break them, when they believe it hasn’t weakened them. The second mistake of the same kind, will break them. It will force them to no longer ignore what they’ve concealed.

To a man, weeping is much like dying. To lose strength upon who he protected, what he held upon his shoulders. Being weakened, does not refer to weakness. To weakness, one has to be inherently so. Though, to be weakened, means that recognition for strength has been blinded. Of tears, that now burn the lids of the eyes, to water the cheeks that have long been like dried gardens. Of weakness, we are. Though, in being weakened, we have become.

A weak man, can only mean he is inherently so. This means there is no such thing.

Though, a weakened man has become this way. It was a “turning point”, so to speak. A simple realization, that a second mistake of the same kind has left him speechless, enough to no longer form an excuse. His immaturity has regressed him into childhood, once more. Perhaps, even infanthood, where if the grief is too castrating, will make him leave this world how he entered it. Crying.

In being weakened, there is no more to say. There is only much more to do. To grow. To mature.

Philosophy – “The Difference Between Beauty and Ugliness” – 2/8/2021

“To the preservation of what has been created, cannot be in sameness of enactment to preserving the deceased. We preserve memories, for flesh will eventually rot. Only through preservation upon living flesh, not its dead form, can beauty be something for protection’s sake.”

– Modern Romanticism

How then, can beauty be a thing of ugliness, if we do not create the latter? We cause the latter, in complete disregard for world’s beauty. It is a differing understanding between order and chaos. That, we can cause a person’s death, out of complete disregard for their life. We can murder the life, into death, because we did not protect it. Out of choice, comes the wish for death. Out of love, comes the heroism in preserving life.

Beauty is thus, on the side of life. Ugliness is thus, on the side of death. As well, beauty is on the side of order, as death is on the side of chaos.

One cannot create chaos, for it is not a creation on its own. Chaos is a causation, upon the creation of order. This is to say that death is impossible to “create”, meaning that only life falls into this category.

As well, it is impossible to “cause” the life to form. We cannot refer to the “cause”, without also referencing chaos. We reference “cause” to chaos, as life references creation. We create life. We cause death.

Beauty is not something of a cause. It is simply something so weak and frail to our eyes, yet to how beautiful we find it to be, we protect it. As a mother protects her child. As an organization will protect an endangered species. As a child will protect the small butterfly from the bully’s stomping foot. We do not wish to see such things turn from order to chaos, from life to death, from beauty to ugliness.

Philosophy – A Critique on Veganism – “A Denial of Humanity” – 2/4/2021

“If one fails to consume, then they shall be consumed by the oppressors we can state are ‘animals’ who resemble humans.”

– Modern Romanticism

How can Vegans be sympathetic towards animals? Is it within the Vegan philosophy to be kind towards other humans, as one? Or, is it within the Vegan philosophy to somehow negate the knowledge that we, too, can be “animals”? And, if Vegans believe a human cannot be compared to an animal, then they must either place themselves as either greater or lesser, to “animals”.

What defines an “animal”, other than what we need to kill, because it does not resemble a human?

Compare the psychopathic serial killer to an “animal”. Compare the pedophile to an “animal”. Compare the raging tyrant to an “animal”. We inevitably bring these people low, from whatever supposed monument they felt was necessary to construct, that they might look down upon those deemed as “lesser”. They deserve no restraint from us, as we “put them down” to a sleep they shall never wake from.

If we can be sympathetic or even empathetic towards other humans, then we do not bend a knee towards oppressors. However, sickened animals, especially of the mind, when they cannot be domesticated like a human, deserve the mercy of euthanization that puts the beast to eternal rest.

If the Vegan can believe humans are not able to be “animals”, then they must believe we are either greater or lesser to them. In which case, if the former is the truth of the Vegan, they contradict themselves. If the latter is the truth of the Vegan, then they are automatic food for those who would “consume” someone who’d not dare to fight against animals.

To be higher than any animal, whether a mere poodle or a domineering tyrant, means to declare oneself as human, as better or more developed than what simply seeks to tear apart. If we do not “consume” what is an animal, then we become consumed by things that are “animals”, though resemble humans.

Philosophy – “When Anger becomes the Reaction to Prejudice” – Pt. 2 – 12/29/2020

“Rage is the uncontrolled emotion, spread about like flame, unable to disperse without either nothing else to destroy, or in the touch of its superior, being water.”

– Modern Romanticism

How cruel can a modern world be to tell a certain race that they’re the only targets of racism, or to tell a woman that she is the only target of sexism? Is this not the same as telling a widow that she should suffer alone, in her grief? Should it not be obvious that a reaction would form, being one of anger?

Anger is the veil before the water, being the hurt of a human. As in, so long as nature compelled it to be the case, that oil would float above water, then everything of pollution, allowed to turn to ash, would be something to burn. Of oil, or of pollution above an ocean, or of anything simply not meant to belong, is what conceals the hurt, beneath. Anger conceals hurt, by how a person becoming enraged is merely pretending to be strong. As in, their rage is their lie to consume, to claim that they are strong, despite being weak because of inward hurt.

To tell a person that they’re the only targets of prejudice, would indeed bring about the isolation necessary to spark anger. Any intense feeling of loneliness is an onset to anger. It is here to prove that whoever tells a race, or any group of people, that they are the only targets to this prejudice, are those who support the divisiveness it causes. Because, out of isolation, comes the anger, and soon comes the inability to understand another. It would be understanding that would douse those flames of wrath, as it would be also the thing to cease the feeling of loneliness.

How else does prejudice become erased, if not for understanding? How else does anger become extinguished, if not for revealing what does hurt? And, how else does a person connect with another, if not to be trusted on the reveal for that hurt? We are then truthful in what we reveal, deep beneath what compelled us to lie and be “strong” in rage.

Philosophy – “Of Art, Realism versus the Artistic” – 12/29/2020

“Some might repeat that art should remain as is, and they’d be right, if no artist was ever deceived by the idea that ‘realism’ should take more prominence on the canvas, over their surroundings.”

– Modern Romanticism

Hyper-realism, in art, possesses no “art” of itself, due to that such paintings of such realism attempt to mimic reality. Even a photograph can only become so “realistic” to the point where a limit is soon discovered. This makes the “artistic” become something so unlimited in its diversity. It makes the “realistic” become limited in what can be created from it. In fact, realism is limited to being a singular in style. Realism cannot be diversified.

An artist is the perfection, as a creator to art, though imperfect with what they’ve personally perceived, or understood, can be mimicked or replicated upon the canvas.

Individualism represents the artist, making nothing of itself able to be criticized nor corrected. How can one better their style of art, to even one’s own comprehension to who they are at their core, without all crumbling?

One can only step into another style of art, so that empathy is lived through the artist to understand another walk of life. To reveal the most realism upon the canvas would never compete with neither the photograph, nor the other artist’s hyper-realism upon their own canvas. How can realism compete with realism, if not becoming one entire painting, or one entire depiction?

As an artist steps into another style of art, they jump into another skin, and thus, become not something more, though something else. Their depiction for what is empathized with, soon becomes the portrayal upon the canvas. In this case, the “canvas” represents the repeated process of imperfection, in the same sense as a child is born.

This is an artist’s way of empathizing with something not so realistic, being of others, revealed as distortion upon the canvas. Mimicking something imperfect is a way for an artist to understand all that is possible to be perceived, or taken in direct relation. Though, it is never to the direct relation for the artist, being perfect, as much as it is more for an artist to simply replicate the distortion of what is understood. This is how an artist understands art, as art. It is a way for an artist to mimic what is seen of others, of surroundings, being of people’s imperfections, and their creation’s imperfections. As individualism cannot be corrected, it is then through unification that an artist has another color upon their palette.

And, as an artist gains inspiration from other art, it is all the same. Though, is it ever possible for an artist to become inspired at something depicted as “hyper-realistic” for the canvas?

Even of the world, of creations done by human hands, such are the imperfections than an artist mimics through a variation of styles. Though, what style is perfection? There is none, by that simply mimicking what is realistic, will halt the empathy for any imperfection meant to be repeated. Such only ever dries the cycle of empathy unto art. It is due to perfection being unable to be perceived nor understood, that any hint of it will not allow the empathy from an artist to see any “depth” to such realism.

Philosophy – “Societal Breeding of Categorical Minorities” – 12/21/2020

“One’s empathy become crossed out in the sand, as one’s desire to aid becomes extinguished, all in the most automatic fashion, soon when they believe people should be categorized.”

– Modern Romanticism

Categories of people? Groups of people? Segregation of minorities into lists of each? All of this is against the empathy that rules what is understood as unity.

It is in the categorization of people, that those groups become certain armies, given special training for special circumstances. Empathy become omitted, by that categorizing person’s deliberate intent to stray away from understanding all as equal. By comprehending certain people to be categorized, such makes the categorizing one as someone who believes in the need to know what is expendable. It is the same as understanding what is written upon a restaurant menu. A restaurant menu can depict what is suitable for one’s hunger, versus what is bound to make one incredibly full. In comparison, such categories on a menu, upon when people are the same, makes such persons treated as expendable.

How can it not, when we look at certain minorities for how they appear in the world, versus what they are able to do? There are those who categorize them, for the sole sake of them “looking good” in the world, or appearing to be “assimilated” with everyone else. However, when empathy becomes involved in that minority’s own profession, that is special treatment. Though, when empathy becomes involved in the friendly manner, outside of the professional world, it becomes utterly appropriate.

Those who categorize human beings, are not seeking unity. They are seeking division, being the opposite. This is because when one only considers how a person appears within those groups, such aligns itself with how a person can either be living or dead. To be someone of a group, would pertain itself directly to division, due to that “being divided” is a state by which a person is no longer ordered. Appearance would relate to division, as beauty is able to decay, while action will be what relates to unity.

And, to remind oneself that appearances would relate to division, is easily comparable to the menu that displays the lists of available options. One, who is categorized, is an expendable, is never loved, is never accepted. They are merely the new introduction, as something tolerated.

Philosophy – “Why Art should Touch on the Internal, over the External” – 12/6/2020

“There are many ways to look at the world, to perceive through various arrangements the differing colors we behold. Though, when does a person ever look within themselves, to pull out some embedded pain that they rarely wish to see?”

– Modern Romanticism

Of the world, it is in what we have created or caused. Like the world, ourselves show a reflection in a mirror, where we may or may not, or simply not wish to see something too hideous to understand. It is not something we should share love to, for that comes easy. We should share trust to it, for those demons within would become beautiful, when placed upon the canvas, or the page, or anything else, as art.

All hideousness that grows within ourselves, can become the most beautiful spectacles, when released into the expression. For that is how we peacefully empty loads. To make something another person could connect to, extinguishes the burning flame of loneliness. For when we make that kind of art, we are no longer hiding in the darkness of such pain. We have moved ourselves, in the inspiration it took to create it, as we move another person, out of what courage for them it took to look upon it.

There are people who would be proud for their pain, proud for their scars, though these are the sorts who are never able to drop their pride, to release that past into the expression. Into tears, or into a simple artwork, requires no special skill. As it is, love is a talent, making this innate part of ourselves meant to come forth, into the open arms of another individual, for their understanding to it.

Love does not die. Though, trust can. When trust receives the noose, there is distance both from ourselves, then from other people. If art can be that which a person normally does not look upon, due to fear, it can be pure.

Artists will make art based on what is around them. Though, such often enters the realms of the political, the social, and the environmental. Were a human, as an artist, or an artist, as a human, to see within, they’d find something long buried. Looking within, a person can be “deep” with their expression, allowing the embrace to another person, as the viewer or appreciator, to enter a comfort that is, as well, deep. Deep, as to be sunken in the bedsheets after a day’s worth of labor.

Humans hide things, do not reveal their flaws, and conceal their sorrows. We are never beautiful, when we are enclosed. Though, the artist who hides, is not a one, at all. We can make art all about the political, though without creativity nor imagination, involved. Such things, we see every day. Though, when is the day a person will look within, to drag out something they do not wish to see?

It is a coward’s way to follow the word of a politician. It is bravery’s way to follow the word of mouth, as an individual. Having a voice, as an artist, is the only way a person will never separate themselves from another, by means of that external stimuli. They can, in fact, be motivated and inspired by someone to trust, because they’ve closed the gap of their distance to them.